Yeah, when we tease the alarmists, they don’t know that they are being teased and take us seriously (this is what makes teasing them so much fun!). Then they tell us that weather is not evidence that global warming isn’t happening, and practically in the same breath use weather as evidence *of* global warming.

Tell an alarmist that the weather means that we now have global cooling, and they adamantly tell you that it’s no longer global warming but “climate change” (as though changing climate is not a natural, constant phenomenon). Then he will tell you that weather-related incidents such as lack of snow and mud slides are indications of climate change, by which he means global warming, because he declares that there is *more* energy in the atmosphere (energy => heat => warming). He may even use the El Nino phenomenon (cyclical warming of part of the Pacific) as evidence of a warming Earth.

He uses anecdotal evidence much more than data taken over decades (even though the data *has* been tampered with by climatologists, such as the East Anglia gang or Michael Mann, always in the direction that past temperatures were lower than measured). Then he will call you a “denier,” unscientific, and unpatriotic. Oh, and if the IPCC received a Nobel Prize (not even for science), they couldn’t possibly have been wrong (which has *never* happened before, even for scientific Nobel Prizes [sarcasm alert]), thus their science has been settled, so stop arguing with me.

You can really shake up (and wind up) an alarmist, and he will say the most ludicrous things. You can only wonder if the names he calls you are really him projecting his sense of self onto you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm05Mcah0i8 (4-1/2 minutes, Bill Nye on Rachel Maddow, winter, 2010)

Some year, we will have to ask alarmists which “normal” climate they want us to keep. Of course, the truth is that the future holds another ice age, which is due any millennium.

And *that* cyclical climate change is the true normal.

http://www.salon.com/2014/01/24/xkcd_has_the_perfect_takedown_of_climate_deniers/

Now, if the US government insists that it wants to reduce our carbon footprint, the best way to accomplish this goal is three-fold:

1). Deport all illegal aliens back to their lower per capita carbon footprint countries.
2). Eliminate all immigration from countries with significantly lower per capita carbon footprints than the USA’s.
3). Reduce current excessive, non-traditional levels of immigration to 200,000 per year (as opposed to over 2,000,000 per year).

It makes no environmental sense to import aliens from countries with a per capita carbon footprint of between 1-5 tons per year (Mexico and Central America) into a country where the per capita carbon footprint is around 17 tons per year (the US). But, it would make sense to import aliens from similar per capita carbon footprint countries, like Canada and Australia.

The next time some faux-environmentalist hand-wrings about CO2 destroying the planet, nail them with the immigration issue and ask them why they refuse to take the above three simple steps in order to save the planet from an excess of greenhouse gases.

Edward,

In reference to the HST rescue mission Orion314 is referring I think to the 2004 decision by NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe to cancel the last repair mission to Hubble after the Columbia accident. In that case none of O’Keefe’s arguments made sense and were often irrational.

You should read my book on Hubble, The Universe in a Mirror. In fact, you both should.

“Apollo 18-20 missions, NASA story? cancelled to save money. Truth? Hardware was already built and paid for.” — Everyone knows that the hardware was built and paid for. It was used on later projects (e.g. Spacelab) or is now on display. Congress, not NASA cancelled Apollo, and *they* said it was to save money.

“STS, ? Nasa story? will launch twice a month” — That *was* the plan, until they discovered that the thermal tiles needed extensive maintenance between missions.

“Viking lander circa 1976, 1st images back, looks too earth like, lets tweak the color saturation on the monitors so it looks more “Mars like” for the reporters” — That’s a lie? They told us about coloration when they published.

“HST rescue mission? Not technically feasible, cost prohibitive, too dangerous…” — I don’t remember any of these arguments. Indeed, it was the press that called it a rescue mission; NASA had planned regular maintenance missions to update the instruments on HST, and it was during the first mainenance mission that they added the prism that corrected the focus — no lies there.

“Challenger?, don’t worry, it’s not too cold to launch….” — NASA didn’t say that, Morton Thiokol did. Read “The Challenger Launch Decision” by Diane Vaughn. (http://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Launch-Decision-Technology-Deviance/dp/0226851761/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390514266&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Challenger+Launch+Decision)

“Columbia? A chunk of ice cannot possibly damage the carbon-carbon re-enforced wings on the orbiter…” — NASA never said that. Indeed, it looks more like a case of normalization of deviance (see “The Challenger Launch Decision” for definition of that phrase).

“Comets? They come from the oort cloud/ kuiper belt…show any proof they even exist….” — They are defined regions of space, so they exist by definition. http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs

“Global warming?” — Now, here we agree. NASA scientists seem to be doing what the rest of NASA does: Congress’s bidding.

“Just the other day someone posted here asking for examples of NASA lying… Well, they didn’t have to wait too long.”

Actually, you had suggested that NASA could not be trusted to tell the truth, but the only topics that came up were (in order): climate change, dirty snowballs, and manned moon landing hoax.

Outside of the climate change and moon landing controversies, NASA has been considered a repository of brilliant scientists, engineers, and technicians. This consideration is due to the manned moon landings, JPL’s deep space probes, and other manned and unmanned space missions performed by NASA.

I agree very much with the opinions stated above that NASA’s climate scientists have fallen prey to the demon of funding realities — report what the customer wants to hear, otherwise he will not fund you any further.

I disagree with those who believe that we didn’t go to the moon. No one has ever said to me what part they thought was impossible (rocketry, aerospace pressure vessels, orbital mechanics, docking two spacecraft, space suits, landing on a planetary surface such as the Earth or Mars, etc.).

Dirty snowballs referenced a shorthand method of describing comets, not a technical, scientific description.

So, what lie has JPL (specific NASA center) told?

They have been caught jiggering the data, and it always happens to make their predictions look good. That is the data jiggering never goes against them. Scandalous. Too bad there is no real opposition party in America.

As an aside, look at the attempt through the EPA to steal land from Wyoming, contra legislation. We are living in very dangerous times, and it has mainly to do with the government against the People.

I believe we should note that the use of the term “scientist” to describe such people may be irrelevant. They are people acting within an organization. They help the organization survive, or they find themselves unemployed. That is as true of universities as it is of government agencies. Note that the government purchase of “authority” from universities actually predates recognized “scientific” organizations. At the latest, the gifts of Henry VIII to universities throughout Europe, who then had scholars telling people that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was something to be annulled is widely regarded as selling their authority to Henry VIII. That science is dominated by those spending so long inside academia is not a comforting thought.

This is a universal rule of thumb:

It must always be assumed that anything that a government (any government) or a politician says (any politician) is a lie and you must walk back from that point to where as best you can reveal through your own best due diligence the reasonable truth.

This rule may seem a bit too pessimistic and rough for some but this is really how things tend to run at their core. I think that the seemingly irrational actions that our government of late has been witnessed to be taking and a good look into history reveals that this is a totally and reasonably supportable point of view..